Exiting the European Union

Dominic Grieve Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

We did—it was called the referendum Act, which was passed by a ratio of 6:1 in this Parliament.

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

First, may I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his complete and abysmal failure over a 10-year period to avoid high office? It is a great pleasure to see him in his place. May I also reassure him that as somebody who supported the remain campaign, I see it as my absolute duty to support the Government in giving effect to the public desire to leave the European Union, including supporting the Government in their implementation of article 50? He rightly pointed out that the matter is legally extremely complex. It also concerns, as he rightly said, the acquis communautaire, which is about the conferring of private legal rights on individuals in this country which have the force of statute. I have to say to my right hon. Friend that the idea that those should simply be revoked by our exit without parliamentary approval troubles me very much and appears to me to be an abdication of the responsibility of this House. I accept that in many cases they have been created by Henry VIII clauses, which was the unsatisfactory nature of the EU, but what we will now do if we cannot scrutinise them before article 50 is invoked is allow the Government to dispose of private property rights, including intellectual property as an example, by decree. That troubles me very much, and I ask him to use his ingenuity to find ways of resolving this particular dilemma.

[Mr Davis]

It is a pleasure to hear from my right hon. and learned Friend and long-term friend, but he is over-interpreting what I have said, I think. Article 50 is the beginning of this process; it is not the end. I know there will be many opportunities for this House to scrutinise what we are about to do after article 50 takes place, but it would be somewhat futile to do so before we start the negotiations, as some of those negotiations will have a direct impact on the very rights that he is talking about. He can take it from me that I did not spend all those years on the Back Benches defending those rights to give them up now.